April Arts Events for Naugatuck Valley Community College

Waterbury, Conn. – The following is a calendar of April events for Naugatuck Valley Community College:

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 22
The Arts and Humanities Department at Naugatuck Valley Community College will host Professor and Poet Laureate Everett Hoagland at “Writer’s Conference 2009” on Wednesday, April 22, in the College’s Playbox Theater in the Fine Arts Center, 750 Chase Parkway, Waterbury.

The event is free and open to the public. The presentation, along with a question and answer session, will take place from 11- 12:30p.m. A writer’s workshop will be held from 2:30- 4p.m followed by an Open Mic from 4-5p.m in Café West of the Joseph V. Cistulli Student Center.

Hoagland is an English Professor Emeritus at UMass Dartmouth and the former Poet Laureate of New Bedford. He has won numerous honors and awards, including the Gwendolyn Brooks Fiction Award and two Massachusetts Council Fellowships for Poetry.

Hoagland has read his work to audiences all over the United States and recently in China and Ghana. His poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Callaloo, Cross Cultural Affairs, The Crisis, Drum Voices, Essence, Political Affairs and The Progressive, as well as in the following anthologies: The Best American Poetry 2002, African American Literature (eds, Gilyard & Wardi), The Oxford Anthology of African American Poetry, Bum Rush the Page: a def poetry jam, and Afro Asia: revolutionary political cultural connections.

For more information or to RSVP, contact Beth-Ann Scott at (203)596-2199 or bscott@nvcc.commnet.edu.

FRIDAY, APRIL 25
Naugatuck Valley Community College will hold its annual spring dance concert performance, “Red, Hot, Blue and NEW!” at 8:00 pm on Saturday, April 25, in the Mainstage Theater of the Fine Arts Center, located at the college’s main campus, 750 Chase Parkway, Waterbury.  
The concert will integrate the College’s Dance Ensemble, directed by Elena Rusnak, and Jazz Ensemble, led by Joseph Jacovino, combining dance and music in a revue spanning from Ragtime to Swing. The College’s scenic designer Bill Cone will transform the Mainstage into the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem where jazz dance and music evolved together from the 1920’s to 1950's. Student compositions in the modern dance genre will also be featured as part of their Choreographic Principles coursework. For many students, this is their first attempt to arrange choreography, costuming, lighting and staging for a formal concert.
Suggested donation is $10. For more information, contact Elena Rusnak at erusnak@nvcc.commnet.edu.